Witty wisdom and pithy humor on economics, geopolitics, and philosophy.

"Losers always whine about (doing) their best. Winners go home and f*ck the prom queen."
--James Mason, Her Majesty's Secret Service

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Sunday, August 22, 2004

Reader Update: Site Maintenance,

I've updated the template, using one of the standard blogger templates. Their service has improved sufficiently for me to choose one of their stock templates. Spending a lot of time on design presentation isn't what I'm primarily trying to do on this blog. It's really about delivering content.

Nonetheless, an update seemed necesssary. I also intend to add back in site-meter functioning and add a blog search engine, since the number of posts is getting sufficiently high so that I'm forced to use google sometimes to sift through my own past posts to find them for references.

I've tested the new blogger commenting section and it seems more aesthetically pleasing than haloscan. I'm sorry about the lost comments from the past, but maybe we can just start over from scratch no? I think it will be worth it if the new comments capability has more than a 1000 word cutoff which some sincere posters seemed to find irksome.

I look forward to providing you new comments about various topics that we've been discussing in days to come.

CIA sanctions Sadr elimination, coordinating US military policy in Najaf

For now, I will just cynically note that the Najaf situation has once again in the fog of war disintegrated all hopes for an immediate resolution. The confrontation with Sadr has been progressing in waves of crisis, and every time it seems near resolution it seems that things fall apart.

I would comfort those who have been proven wrong about calling the moment of crisis easing, their mistake was simply failing to see the "invisible hand" of behind the scenes manipulation. Clearly some element with access to the political-military hierarchy is pushing this conflict. From the very beginning from the shutting down of Sadr's newspaper, to after that calmed down to the "accidental" attack on Sadr's house that reignited it, to the arrests of his henchmen, to the most recent series of quite serious (the oldman always takes precise dropped munitions and AC-130 aircraft seriously, and suggest you do too) attacks that occurred on the shrine while the world press was diverted by the National Assembly and the imminent possibility of a turn-over of the Shrine to Sistani.

Let me put it simply to all the naive waifs out there. The issue is not whether Sistani's men will take the keys or not with or without an inventory. It is simply impossible to withdraw from an entrenched position when you are surrounded and taking continuous fire. I call it the Alamo syndrome. Who knows how many of those guys actually wanted to retreat. However if you have no line of retreat, you can't.

Of course Sadr's milita could always vacate the shrine. In which case, the US military has already sent a clear signal that the moment they do so they will level the buildings the militia are in and slaughter them, and call it cleanup and pacification programs meant to secure the Old City and turn it back over to the city denizens. With no journalists there to witness it, such a mop-up act is probably been planned and greenlighted already.

In such a circumstance, all talk about the squabbles between Shiites over custodial issues as if a cleaning deposit was what was at stake is just more disinformation being disseminated outwards.

The crisis is not easing, simply because someone in the military chain of command does not wish to let Sadr's militia slink off and is poising themselves to wipe out Sadr's militia once and for all. This is not to paint Sadr as an innocent victim. He is a theocratic ignorant thug and a punk that is in my opinion no better than a jumped up gang-leader. However, the militia can not retreat in good order without being harried unless the US military is willing to pull back and not engage.

Continuing to engage and pressure them, is a military way of telling them that was soon as resistance collapses they will shoot them in the backs while they're running. US forces are undoubtedly poised to surge the moment that Sadr's mens' lines start going soft. Yet the Orwellian newspeak going around is that the US military is continuing to pressure Sadr's men in order to advance the negotiations. And journalists are actually repeating this lie.

Since when does it actually improve the chances of someone vacating a position, when you continue to shoot at them and bombard them and they know the moment they vacate the position you will obliterate them?

Not very good negotiating tactics, but an excellent way to sabotage negotiations in order for a peaceful transfer of ownership of the shrine.

Someone wants to kill Sadr and make it look like it's his fault. That's what's happening. That this disinformation is being conducted far more successfully than the past idiotic "five oclock follies" by Pentagon and Army spokesmen leads me to conclude that it is the CIA in charge, which would make sense since Allawi who is in their pocket and not the Pentagon's.

Basically my take as well Oldman. I don't know who it is (I suspect Negroponte and Allawi), but they want to make an example of Sadr. I'm not sure it'll work, because I'm not sure if dead he'll turn martyr. More than that, I don't know if the majority of his militia is actually in Najaf. There are indications it might not be, only a part of it. Lopping the head off will probably just lead to someone else taking over - someone with a big grudge who decides not to go public, but to let actions (er, mortar rounds), speak for him.

You're right IMO, the U.S. wants ownership of the shrine even if they have to turn Al-Sadr into a martyr and wreck the shrine in the process. I predict both will occur given our propensity for excessive violence.

It will of course cause several major problems for us. Not that the CIA or the DOD really care.1) Alienate the Shia from the U.S. and push them into the radical camp as well. There are Shia all over the Muslim world and we'll turn them into enemies once we make the shrine a abattior.2)Prove once and for all, the U.S. is on a crusader against the Moslem world and is intent on colonizing Iraq.3)Ruin Sistani's credibility. We bought the old bastard but after we damage the shrine, his power goes down the tubes. Being a Ayatollah is as much a popularity contest as it is about religion.4) Piss off even more Iraqis, from what I know, our Iraqi allies in Najaf have already deserted. 5) This will be Osama's best birthday present ever.

oldman: While you are at restructuring the appearance of the site, would you kindly consider examining the style sheet; it uses absolute widths for the content presentation. I was given a machine with a ridiculously large screen resolution (1920 px wide), and so absolute pixel numbers appear at 1/2 their standard size. Is there a way to make it relative in the style sheet?

Looking at the mindset of fanatics; they interperet compasion, politeness, honorability, granting consessions, negotiations as an opening to, and weakness, to be taken advantage of, to acheeve their objective.

If you let ANY religious leader get more power, he will use that power to get more power. Eventualy you end up with religion versus science. This leads to a decline in the standard of living, with the worst case senario being "the stone age." If you want proof of this just look at Afganistan.

If we had gone into Falusia (sp) it would be done and almost forgotten. We might also not have this pressent situation in Najaf.

The mistake we are making is that we are allowing the poloticians in the Govenment and the Military to play polotics with a war. Fight first, win the war, then do the polotics. (Yes, it does sound like Vietnam, from this point of view only!)

First of all you're suggesting we wipe out a lot of innocents in one the third most sacred cities in the Islamic world - a very dangerous idea for many reasons.

The problem with Vietnam era "lets kill'em all and let God sort them out" approach it doesn't work. We'll only be casting ourselves as a nation bloodthirsty savages to rest of the world. Our gov't and miltary doesn't even understand the cultural and political dynamics of Iraq. Remember these are same imbeciles who believed we would be welcomed with hugs and flowers and were too stupid to read up to what happened to their British predecessors.

Look, Al-Sadr is a shrewd pol. He built his base among the poor Shia(who are ignored by the 4 Margas, Sistani being one of them) by providing them schools and health care. Nor is he afraid to go out like his father and brother did against Hussein. He would'nt have been a problem had we just let him vent. Instead, Lord Bremer gets mad because Al-Sadr mocks him in his newspaper. Bremer sends a military goon squad to shut him down thus setting off the chain of events you see now.

If we go into the Shrine, you think we have problems now? You ain't seen nothing yet. We can forget about getting Moslem cooperation at all against AQ, plus incurring 50-100 years of Moslem hatred against the U.S.Like I said, Bush is giving Osama the best birthday present ever.

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